The Voice and the Written Word
by devilisinthedetails
Summary: Zahir doesn't understand why northerners revere the written word the way Bazhir do the Voice.


The Voice and the Written Word

Zahir longed to cover his ears, which for the past three bells—that clanging system northerners used to keep time because they were so disconnected from the natural progressions of the sun that they required this alarming intrusion into their lives to know what place they should rush off to next—had been ringing with the spiteful argument between the Lord of Runnerspring and his southern neighbor who alleged that the Lord of Runnerspring had authorized the building of a new mill that interrupted the flowing of the stream into his neighbor's lands.

If Zahir only thought wistfully of covering his ears, the king—who Zahir still had trouble believing was his knightmaster—went one step further, slumping in his chair after the squabbling lords had left and cupping his ears between his hands. Suddenly, he did not look like the king or the Voice, a spiritual leader more powerful than all the other shamans combined. Instead he seemed human, weak, and strained to the breaking point by the incessant bickering of his nobles.

"More wine, sire?" Zahir made to refill the king's goblet with wine from the bottle he had been about to return to storage but stopped when King Jonathan gave him a rueful shake of the head.

"No thank you, squire." The king's lips twitched into a smile that was probably intended to be wry but just struck Zahir as weary. "If I tried to drink away the pressures of ruling, I would drink without ceasing, I'm afraid."

Zahir should have shut his mouth—because Lord Wyldon always said good squires were seen and not heard—but instead he observed without thinking, "You got the lords to reach an agreement, though, didn't you, Your Majesty?" The title was still a bitter taste on his tongue but he was getting used to it, another Tortallan custom he had to adopt as a Bazhir.

"I hope so." King Jonathan massaged his temples. "I'll have to get it in writing from them tomorrow to be sure of that."

"Oh." Zahir pondered whether his king also did not trust the northern nobles any further than he could throw them in a sandstorm. "You don't have faith in them, then, do you?"

"Why would you think that, Zahir?" King Jonathan arched an eyebrow at him.

"You wouldn't have to get it in writing from then if you believed that their yes meant yes and their no meant no, sire." Zahir had always interpreted the northern obsession with recording everything on parchment as a sign that northerners were all liars. Around the desert fires, a man's words was either worth everything or nothing, and parchment, which could be turned to ashes, was held not in esteem but contempt. From the time Zahir had been weaned, his father had taught him that word of mouth was his life's blood. It was word of mouth that brought the northern merchants to the tents of Zahir's tribe, bringing great gifts for Zahir's father, the headman, to beg for guidance and protection on the long trade routes through the sand, the assurance of one merchant to another that Zahir's people would take a fair payment and not betray the merchants who hired them for journeys. It was word of mouth that made the merchants understand that if they tried to cheat Zahir's tribe, they would have their goods confiscated and be abandoned far from an oasis for the gods to decide if they lived or died.

"I wouldn't phrase it that bluntly." King Jonathan steepled his fingers. "Tell me, squire: why do you think things are written down?"

"To tax people. To punish them. To oppress them." Zahir's fists clenched, because he remembered—even if he hadn't lived through it, his father and his grandfather before him had—the strict laws and the harsher penalties the northerners had written down to break the Bazhir. His growth might not have been stunted by the hunger created when King Roald I had tried to tax the Bazhir into submission, but his mother had lost a sister in childhood to starvation. King Jonathan had reduced the tax rate to a reasonable level and the wealth of Zahir's family had increased tenfold since Zahir's birth, but still he didn't have to question why when the Bazhir had their periodic uprisings against the northerners, they had tried to burn their way to freedom by setting aflame the tax books and court records. The Bazhir hadn't been stupid. They had understood that the written word was the ultimate agent of northern tyranny.

"You disappoint me, Zahir." King Jonathan sighed. "After all your time in the north, I thought you would've gained a greater appreciation of the written word."

Zahir stifled an eye roll—the northern reverence for the written word was almost as unquestioning as the Bazhir faith in the Voice—but he couldn't prevent himself from replying almost resentfully, "You're the Voice. I thought you would've understood the Bazhir perspective on the written word better."

He expected and probably deserved a reprimand for impudence, but the king instead went silent for a moment before responding, "I won't deny that there's a lot of pain and history behind the Bazhir view of the written word, but that doesn't mean the perspective is correct or that it doesn't impede progress."

"I've seen the royal records when you've sent me there to fetch documents for you, sire." Zahir's chin lifted. "Over half the royal records are devoted to taxes."

"Taxes are an important part of running a kingdom." King Jonathan was pinching the bridge of his nose as if Zahir had given him a headache. "How else would we fund roads, schools, armies, government, and all manner of projects?"

"Donations." Zahir shrugged since that was how the Bazhir funded their traveling school for those with the Gift. "If something must be done and the people want it to happen, they'll willingly give their money to the cause."

"I wish that were the case—" King Jonathan grinned crookedly—"but I'm afraid that's not so. That's why your perspective on the written word is naive."

"Explain the right one, then, Your Majesty." In his head, Zahir added: the northern one.

"The written word holds everyone—great and small—accountable." The king's blue eyes blazed with a sudden passion that reminded Zahir of the hottest parts of a flame. "It provides a permanent record, a precise standard to check if memory fails—"

"If it was important, memory wouldn't fail, sire." Zahir stuck his nose in the air haughtily, wondering if northerners had poor memories because they relied on quills to do their thinking for them.

Ignoring this interruption, his knightmaster continued smoothly, "We can hold people to their word much easier when it is written down."

Zahir's eyes narrowed as he considered this, and then remembering how a Conte king by the name of Jasson had once approached his tribe with a promise of alliance that had been betrayed in favor of oppression once other Bazhir tribes had been subdued, demanded, "If my great-grandfather had gotten an agreement in writing from your grandfather, would my people have been able to keep their land, Your Majesty?"

"I don't know." King Jonathan squeezed Zahir's shoulders, but, far from taking comfort in the gesture that was doubtlessly meant to be affectionate, Zahir felt his stomach knot as he remembered that his king—his Voice—had named a son in homage to a man Zahir saw not as a hero but as a liar. "I can't tell you what would or wouldn't have happened. I just know we're here, and we'll have to move forward together."

"With me as your squire." Zahir still wasn't sure how he felt about that. Tilting his head inquisitively, he pointed out as the thought occurred to him, "You didn't make me sign anything when you asked me to be your squire, sire."

"No, I didn't." King Jonathan mussed Zahir's hair. "I'm well aware that you've no respect for the written word, and, anyway, I know that your yes means yes and your no means no." 


End file.
